The British firm CMS Cameron McKenna published this year the first ever law firm “human capital” report. As reported in April by the Financial Times (at pg. 9), the report provides some data that law departments might also track and ponder.

For example, secretaries took on average 6.6 sick days, down by half from a few years previous after a “regime of back-to-work interviews and physiotherapy sessions.” By contrast, the firm’s lawyers took just 2.9 days of sick leave on average. The firm also disclosed its salary levels (average: £42,893, which is about $80,000) (See my post of August 26, 2005 on releasing within a law department certain salary ranges.)

A law department that wants to baseline its own staff’s sick days taken will find this data insightful. The vastly more important learning from this firm’s innovation comes from two other points: its contribution to the classic balanced scorecard measures for personnel development and its recognition that in a law department, talent is royalty and ought to be attended to